What These Eyes Have Seen
by Jenna Black
Summary: Rewritten as of Feb2006. Dennis POV set far into the future. One shot, complete.


What These Eyes Have Seen  
By Jenna Black  
Rewritten on January 4, 2006  
Timeline: Future fic, takes place many, many, many, years in the future. Dennis POV.

I don't think much of my human life anymore; it serves no purpose, and no longer affects me. To me, my existence began when a girl named Cordelia came to live with me. At that time, I had been a ghost for a measly 40 years. Now I've been a ghost for nearly 300. And, oh Lord, what these eyes have seen…

I am alone now, and I have seen the entire Angel Investigations family die.

Wesley was the first to die; an unexpected demon attacked the hotel one night and Wesley was the one to sacrifice himself to free the others. At least that was what I was told. After Wesley died, everything changed. The humans of Angel Investigations no longer thought of themselves as immortal, like Angel. Fred was the next to die, six months later. When Wesley died he took a part of Fred with him. Alone, no longer guided by Wesley, she became reckless. That recklessness drove her to extremes, and she followed her husband out of this earth on the wrong side of a gun.

Two more died that year, that year that seemed to never end. Gunn and Lorne, both in the same vampire raid. The people that had come for help told them there would be no more than eight in the nest- instead there had been over 20. That was too much for Angel to take on, let alone one human and a peaceful green demon.

By 2015, the only ones left were Angel and Cordelia. That was the year I was freed from my prison. Wolfram and Hart decided that if they couldn't get Angel,  
they would at least try to get Cordelia. They set the house to blow the first time someone opened the front door. Luckily, that was me. Once the house had completely burnt down, I was freed from my prison. But I was still trapped on the Earth, as I am now. At least I am able to explore. The first thing I did was go to the hotel to tell Angel and Cordelia that she would now be living in the hotel as well. When I got there, I found them reading a book together with her tenderly curled up next to him, using his chest as a pillow and his coat as a blanket.

When she found out about her home she was sad, but in a strange way, as if she was glad because now she had an excuse to live with Angel. When she moved in so did I, and I became a member of the family, albeit a silent one.

Things went along fine at first; we never lost a battle with me fighting, because no one could ever fight back. We continued on in that way until 2021, when the next apocalypse came. The end of the world. Forever. At least that's what it would have been, if it weren't for the fact that they stopped it. But to stop it came with a price. One of them had to die, to sacrifice themselves to save the world. And it couldn't be a vampire, even one with a soul. That was when Cordelia left this world, leaving Angel alone. Angel was a warrior though, so no matter how much he was hurting inside, he fought, because that was who he was. We vanquished thousands of demons, side-by-side, for over 50 years. Then the Shanshu came. When he became human, The Powers that Be gave him his humanity, but it came with a price. They were through with him, and though he knew of the evil things hiding in the dark shadows of this world, he could no longer fight them. In the end he ended up writing his life down and selling it as a fiction novel. The book climbed onto the best sellers list and he became a millionaire. The Powers That Be had given him a wonderful life; he had finally achieved his dream. But to him, it wasn't enough.

No matter what he did, his life as a human was a bittersweet one, because he still couldn't live with his love, Cordelia. In the end he wished for death long before it came, and it was that pain he thought he could escape from as a human that finally consumed him. He died bitter, old, and alone, in the year 2143. But though his human life was miserable, I still think of him as the lucky one. He gets to go to Heaven.

Since he has died I have lived through three more wars, and the destruction of all life. You see, when they told Angel that he was going to save the world, they meant he was going to say it from all unnatural things. He couldn't save the world from hate. Humans brought about the end of the world on their own, without any help from anyone but themselves. It began one-hundred years after Angel had died, when the United States fell. What had once been thought of as a super-power was now worse than a third world country.

Other places decided to make what was once the U.S. pay for what it had done to them before the fall, and decided to destroy Washington D.C. with some type of new super-bomb.

What they hadn't known, though, was that if the connection between the White House and the Pentagon was broken, 25 atomic bombs were set to explode in various places around the world. They weren't enough to kill everybody, but they were enough to send the world into a nuclear winter that would.

Now not even demons can walk the earth, it has become too hostile. The only things left are ghosts and bones. I'm free to walk the Earth as much as I please, if only there were things to see.

If the bombs hadn't knocked down all buildings, then "The Winter's" harshness had. It has now been many years since "The Winter's" end. The world is now a desert wasteland. As I look out into the rising, swirling mists of red dust, I almost see the faces of the people I have known and lost. I see Angel, Cordelia, and the rest of my family. I see them in my mind every hour of every day, wondering how things might have been and how things are 'up there'. I have to face the truth though; I am stranded on this desolate, endless island. I will never get off, and I will never go on.

I am stuck in this unlife wishing I didn't have to watch as everything around me changed or ended. I'm here in this endless cycle, where even vampires get rest and go on before me. I wish that what I do know could be known elsewhere, where people still exist. Where hope is still alive and where dreams can still come true.

I am so tired, but I will never sleep. I am so hungry, but I will never eat. I am so thirsty, but I will never drink. I can still see, but I will never be seen. I can still think, but what I think will never be known. And I can still move, but I will never live. I wish others could see what I have seen and can see.

Because, oh Lord; what these eyes have seen.


End file.
